DOGE “cut muscle, not fat”; 26K experts rehired after brutal cuts

Government brain drain will haunt US after DOGE abruptly terminated.

After Donald Trump curiously started referring to the Department of Government Efficiency exclusively in the past tense, an official finally confirmed Sunday that DOGE “doesn’t exist.”

Talking to Reuters, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor confirmed that DOGE—a government agency notoriously created by Elon Musk to rapidly and dramatically slash government agencies—was terminated more than eight months early. This may have come as a surprise to whoever runs the DOGE account on X, which continued posting up until two days before the Reuters report was published.

As Kupor explained, a “centralized agency” was no longer necessary, since OPM had “taken over many of DOGE’s functions” after Musk left the agency last May. Around that time, DOGE staffers were embedded at various agencies, where they could ostensibly better coordinate with leadership on proposed cuts to staffing and funding.

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Arduino’s new terms of service worries hobbyists ahead of Qualcomm acquisition

“Why is reverse-engineering prohibited… for a company built on openly hackable systems?”

Some members of the maker community are distraught about Arduino’s new terms of service (ToS), saying that the added rules put the company’s open source DNA at risk.

Arduino updated its ToS and privacy policy this month, which is about a month after Qualcomm announced that it’s acquiring the open source hardware and software company. Among the most controversial changes is this addition:

User shall not:

  • translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform’s operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements …

In response to concerns from some members of the maker community, including from open source hardware distributor and manufacturer Adafruit, Arduino posted a blog on Friday. Regarding the new reverse-engineering rule, Arduino’s blog said:

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Why synthetic emerald-green pigments degrade over time

Light is the greatest threat to 19th-century masterpieces like James Ensor’s The Intrigue, study finds.

The emergence of synthetic pigments in the 19th century had an immense impact on the art world, particularly the availability of emerald-green pigments, prized for their intense brilliance by such masters as Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet. The downside was that these pigments often degraded over time, resulting in cracks and uneven surfaces and the formation of dark copper oxides—even the release of arsenic compounds.

Naturally it’s a major concern for conservationists of such masterpieces. So it should be welcome news that European researchers have used synchrotron radiation and various other analytical tools to determine whether light and/or humidity are the culprits behind that degradation and how, specifically, it occurs, according to a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Science has become a valuable tool for art conservationists, especially various X-ray imaging methods. For instance, in 2019, we reported on how many of the oil paintings at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had been developing tiny, pin-sized blisters, almost like acne, for decades. Chemists concluded that the blisters are actually metal carboxylate soaps, the result of a chemical reaction between metal ions in the lead and zinc pigments and fatty acids in the binding medium used in the paint. The soaps start to clump together to form the blisters and migrate through the paint film.

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It’s official: Boeing’s next flight of Starliner will be allowed to carry cargo only

As the space station nears its end, NASA also cuts some future Starliner flights.

The US space agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming Monday that the vehicle will carry only cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing are now targeting no earlier than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the space agency said. Launching by next April will require completion of rigorous test, certification, and mission readiness activities, NASA added in a statement.

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in a statement.

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This $10 Raspberry Pi adapter provides two full-sized HDMI ports and a PCIe connector

Waveshare’s new PCIe to M.2 multifunction adapter for the Raspberry Pi 5 is a $10 accessory that’s basically an updated version of last year’s HDMI adapter. Like its predecessor, it’s a small board that plugs into the USB and mi…

Waveshare’s new PCIe to M.2 multifunction adapter for the Raspberry Pi 5 is a $10 accessory that’s basically an updated version of last year’s HDMI adapter. Like its predecessor, it’s a small board that plugs into the USB and micro HDMI ports on the side of Raspberry Pi’s single-board computer, allowing you to use cables […]

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Project Kuiper: Amazon öffnet sein Satellitennetzwerk für erste Nutzer

Amazon kann den Zugang zu seinem ehemaligen Kuiper-Netzwerk bereits an erste Testkunden vergeben. Beworben werden 1 GBit/s im Download und 400 MBit/s im Upload. (Satelliten, Amazon)

Amazon kann den Zugang zu seinem ehemaligen Kuiper-Netzwerk bereits an erste Testkunden vergeben. Beworben werden 1 GBit/s im Download und 400 MBit/s im Upload. (Satelliten, Amazon)

Samsung Movingstyle is a 27 inch portable touchscreen TV on a stand

The new Samsung Movingstyle LSM7F is a portable TV that’s also basically a big tablet. It has a 27 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel, 120 Hz display and Samsung’s Tizen-based smart TV operating system. Unlike most TVs though, this model has a touchsc…

The new Samsung Movingstyle LSM7F is a portable TV that’s also basically a big tablet. It has a 27 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel, 120 Hz display and Samsung’s Tizen-based smart TV operating system. Unlike most TVs though, this model has a touchscreen display and a built-in 69.3 Wh battery that provides up to 3 hours […]

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